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[Frumple]

... considerably more realistically, it depends pretty heavily on the individual in question. There's plenty of the older generations that have acclimatized perfectly well to the new technology, and more beyond that that manage alright.

The general response I've seen outside the nutballs is that they realize it's very useful but have trouble really internalizing recent technology use. Older folks have their ipads and their smart phones and whatever, too, they're just generally not quite as dexterous about 'em.

As for all work and no play... not so much. From what I've seen, if there's a generalization to make it's that their conceptualization of "play" in relation to the new tech is somewhat more toned down compared to the newer generations. For them, e-mail and facebook and board games an' crap is play -- whether they're unaware or uninterested in the more sophisticated stuff varies by individual, but the average response I've seen definitely involves awareness of (at least some of) the not!work aspects of newer tech.

[Scoops Novel]

Hell, i get the impression that today's teenagers under-exploit it. Severely.

[Aklyon]

Older people can certainly use newer stuff. XP died on my grandma's computer, she's perfectly fine with linux mint's firefox and thunderbird email. Though she doesn't use it for much else.

[Loud Whispers]

Hell, i get the impression that today's teenagers under-exploit it. Severely.

A generation of social networking, advertisements and brands injected into the virtual subconscious of humanity. How quaint.

[Graknorke]

Hell, i get the impression that today's teenagers under-exploit it. Severely.

A generation of social networking, advertisements and brands injected into the virtual subconscious of humanity. How quaint.

In our defense, it's the fault of the generation before.

[Muz]

IMO, it's unlikely that they're actually worse at learning as you age; you've got a lot more things in your head by then and you're able to make more associations. A lot of people reach their peak past retirement age - you simply don't see any presidents or CEOs much younger than that.

I think they're just not willing to learn. Some people just get tired of learning new things. If you're going to be using computers for the next 50 years, there's little harm in learning now. But if you don't need it for a job and are happy with reading books and won't probably need it for the next 5 years, you probably don't need it.

And I think a lot of people resent spending a lot of time learning something and then having it go obsolete. They hold on to what they've learned. Kinda noticing this with a lot of old engineers who refuse to learn modern computerized techniques or programmers who still hold on to obsoleted VB or ASP.

[Flying Dice]

One of the most well-known players in an MMO I played in my younger years was elderly. I've heard of similar cases elsewhere. Anecdotal evidence, true, but indicative that generalizations may not be the way to go, particularly when they themselves are based on personal experience.

[alway]

Something really interesting to watch will be the Future Emerging Technologies (FET) grant/s. http://www.euractiv.com/innovation-enterprise/euro-research-race-enters-closin-news-513278
Of the final 6 (at least 1 of which will be getting $1 billion in funding from the EU), 4 of the 6 are, to put it mildly, REALLY REALLY AWESOME.
1. FuturICT; this project aims to take in and process huge quantities of data, using it to predict large scale future events, as well as produce more accurate methods of modeling future events.
2. The Human Brain Project; this project is an outgrowth of Project Blue Brain. Project Blue Brain has been simulating, at the molecular level, how neurons interact. Thus far, they've simulated portions of a rat brain, with a goal of simulating a full rat brain by 2014. Their ultimate goal is to simulate a human brain (approximately 1000 times bigger, according to their site), which is where it ties into this sub-project. They've already got plenty of results from their work thus far; and if they were to simulate a full human brain, BAM, strong humanlike AI.
3. Robot Companions for Citizens; this project is to effectively create an environment of human-interaction friendly robots to make our lives better.
4. Guardian Angles; this project aims to create wearable equipment for health and environment monitoring purposes; essentially a really small, user friendly sensor-platform.
5. ITFOM; essentially just an IT reworking of the way medical information is processed/gets around. It should be done, but it's more of a 'business as usual' project as far as the average person is concerned IMO
6. Graphene Flagship; material science research into graphene and related materials; again, important, but relatively mundane as far as transformative potential goes

Links to the projects can be found on the page I linked.

An update on this topic: The final FET selections were made; the 2 projects being funded are:
Graphene Flagship
Human Brain Project
So. Graphene; practical, but relatively mundane. Material science at its finest, which will result in cool stuff in the near future.
Human Brain Project. Simulated human brain. Hells yeah. The projects will have a 10 year funding guarantee, so expect cool stuff in those directions over the next decade and a half or so.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130201132611111

[Zrk2]

Yes; they'll just be technophobic of different things.

[Loud Whispers]

Will a simulation of a brain create artificial thought or simulated thought? Science shall soon know. And kill us all.

[Aklyon]

Will a simulation of a brain create artificial thought or simulated thought? Science shall soon know. And kill us all.

Also, will it get there before or after Grandroids beats it (in a way) to the punch?

[Flying Dice]

7 months later and the OP is still getting responses.

Something really interesting to watch will be the Future Emerging Technologies (FET) grant/s. http://www.euractiv.com/innovation-enterprise/euro-research-race-enters-closin-news-513278
Of the final 6 (at least 1 of which will be getting $1 billion in funding from the EU), 4 of the 6 are, to put it mildly, REALLY REALLY AWESOME.
1. FuturICT; this project aims to take in and process huge quantities of data, using it to predict large scale future events, as well as produce more accurate methods of modeling future events.
2. The Human Brain Project; this project is an outgrowth of Project Blue Brain. Project Blue Brain has been simulating, at the molecular level, how neurons interact. Thus far, they've simulated portions of a rat brain, with a goal of simulating a full rat brain by 2014. Their ultimate goal is to simulate a human brain (approximately 1000 times bigger, according to their site), which is where it ties into this sub-project. They've already got plenty of results from their work thus far; and if they were to simulate a full human brain, BAM, strong humanlike AI.
3. Robot Companions for Citizens; this project is to effectively create an environment of human-interaction friendly robots to make our lives better.
4. Guardian Angles; this project aims to create wearable equipment for health and environment monitoring purposes; essentially a really small, user friendly sensor-platform.
5. ITFOM; essentially just an IT reworking of the way medical information is processed/gets around. It should be done, but it's more of a 'business as usual' project as far as the average person is concerned IMO
6. Graphene Flagship; material science research into graphene and related materials; again, important, but relatively mundane as far as transformative potential goes

Links to the projects can be found on the page I linked.

An update on this topic: The final FET selections were made; the 2 projects being funded are:
Graphene Flagship
Human Brain Project
So. Graphene; practical, but relatively mundane. Material science at its finest, which will result in cool stuff in the near future.
Human Brain Project. Simulated human brain. Hells yeah. The projects will have a 10 year funding guarantee, so expect cool stuff in those directions over the next decade and a half or so.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130201132611111

That looks amazingly cool. Sort of interesting to see the split between stuff that's useful and stuff that's mindblowingly futuristic that may someday be useful. There are going to be some ethical issues with that as well, if they're going to get around to simulating intelligence.

[Scoops Novel]

If they make significant progress on the brain front, many will call for the project to be stopped, but by then we'll know that it's possible and it's either this project or someone else''s making the breakthrough. Personally, i hope they make that discovery after I'm dead.

[10ebbor10]

Problem is, if you stop the project, have you just killed somebody. Provided we get actual reactions and not a comatose computer simulation.

[Dutchling]

He's a person if he can convince the researchers not to terminate him.